This article explores Roman freedmen’s masculine positions expressed as virtues, qualities, and ideals in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger. It discusses whether there were specific freedman virtues, qualities, and ideals and what consequences their existence or absence had for freedmen’s constructions of masculinity. A critical close reading of the texts is applied, combined with theories of masculinity, where hegemonic masculinity is a key concept. It is concluded that there were no virtues or qualities that were specific or exclusive to freedmen. A distinct set of virtues for freedmen did not exist in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, since much the same behaviour and qualities are seen as manly and desirable for freedmen as for freeborn male citizens of high birth. However, freedmen cannot comply with the hegemonic masculinity in full, since they cannot embody the Roman masculine ideal of the vir bonus and cannot be associated with the Roman cardinal virtue virtus, which was central in the construction of masculinity in the Roman world. This illustrates the complex Roman gender discourse and, on the whole, the social complexity of Roman society.

This article investigates the crisis in Classical Studies in Sweden. We identify two crises in Classical Studies: one concerning the changes in the education and the other concerning the way in which women are represented in educational material. For this reason the article investigates if and how women are represented in Greek and Latin educational material in higher education in Sweden. The material is investigated using a feminist pedagogical gaze and in doing so we wish to show how values concerning women are communicated through the educational material. Focusing on women the article seeks to uncover patterns that are largely unchallenged in Classical Studies in Sweden. The article comes to the conclusion that the educational material is structured by a male norm, that women are not only underrepresented, but when they are indeed visible, the representation is misogynic. The article therefore argues that more research into how women are represented is needed in order to change negative attitudes to women in the educational material.